Found Animals: Contact the Professionals

Posters for lost and found animals are everywhere in our neighborhood. On nearly every lamppost, bulletin board and tree, there are shreds of Xeroxed pages with images or drawings of pets that have wandered away, escaped, or found their way to a well-meaning neighbor’s home. Perhaps you yourself have even found a stray in the park, or worse, the parking lot, wandering helplessly. While taking the animal home with you often seems to be the best course of action, this can frequently be more hurtful than helpful.

Seattle Animal Control has recently mounted a new campaign on buses and billboards around the city, encouraging citizens to call the shelter to check for missing animals. However, it is important to remember that animals end up safely in the shelter because someone finds them and contacts Animal Control.

The city also offers an informative list of steps that pet owners should take when a pet is missing. However, many of these steps also rely on pets being turned in to the shelter.

Every stray that is reunited with its owner, or placed with a new family, gets to the shelter because a neighbor makes the call.

Unless you have a micro-chip reader or a kennel, your home is not the place for a stray.
Your phone number, unlike Animal Control’s, isn’t listed in the phone book or online as a resource for distraught owners.

While turning a found pet over to the shelter can seem like the less compassionate route at the time, it is ultimately the best hope for reuniting animal and owner. Taking a stray home and hoping that the owner lives close enough to see a poster in the park is not enough.

If you find a stray animals, please call Animal Control as your first course of action.
In Seattle, you can call (206) 386-PETS. Be prepared with a description of the animal and your valid ID.